Judge Sharon Keller is charged with five counts of judicial misconduct, nearly three years after she famously said "We close at 5" while lawyers for a condemned man scrambled to file an appeal hours before his execution.

Ms Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals, has asked the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to side with a report last year which said she was undeserving of any sanction beyond "the public humiliation she has surely suffered".

She is the highest-ranking criminal judge in Texas, presiding over the court of last resort for inmates on Death Row.